If you skip past the crushed almond brittle on top (more on this later), this fairly unique take on a Malaysian-flavoured cake with pastry cream frosting resulted in a dessert that was, surprisingly, not overly sweet or cloying. So many bakers working with Gula Melaka as an ingredient tend to forget that this palm-sweetener has a pretty loud flavour profile and it can drown out pretty much everything else. I don't taste that happening here. The well-balanced dance between fruity banana and toffee-note cake layers doesn't outshine each other, resulting in morsels that are non-cloying.
But ignore the crushed almond brittle topping at your (gustatory) peril! This adds a welcome layer of texture to what can be otherwise a somewhat very moist cake. Arguably, the topping is magnitudes sweeter than the cake layers themselves, but they are, once again, used in just enough quantities to greatly lift the eating experience and make this cake a winner in my book.
